3.14159 2.0

Or, a second visit to District of Pi (910 F Street, Penn Quarter), where I have eaten several times since my first visit in November 2011, when it was new, but this was the first visit for Mrs. Me. And it won’t be the last, since she proclaimed it her favorite pizza in DC.* Not sure I agree, but maybe. Despite some advances in recent years, DC is still not a great pizza town. I also still haven’t visited most of the new and well-thought-of pizzerias, so it’s hard to do a fair comparison. Pi is almost certainly the best deep dish pie in town, but that’s not saying much. I don’t mean to damn by faint praise, the Pi thick crust really is pretty good, and for Mrs. Me the dense, abundant, concentrated tomatoes are a huge plus, maybe less so for me. I’m a cheese guy. But the crust really is good.

* she said this prior to our visit last month to Ghibellina, which may or may not have affected her ranking. Yes, I was slow to publish this review.

I don’t think Pi’s thin crust stacks up as well against even the local competition. But the sides (salads, meatballs) are good, the beer list is strong, and although the decibels are high and the service can be uneven (extremes of insufficient and excessive attentiveness), it’s a solid lunch or dinner option in the Metro Center-Gallery Place nexus. Still, with Ella’s (my favorite local thin crust) right around the corner…and Ghibellina…I don’t know.